Watchmen in the Family

Josiah Carter was born on 31 Aug 1726, one of the nine children of Josiah and Lydia (Ambrose) Carter arriving between 1724 and 1738. He was baptized the next day in Boston’s First Meetinghouse, nicknamed “the Old Brick.”

Josiah’s father might have been the Josiah Carter who advertised psalm-singing lessons at his house on Union Street in the late 1740s.

It’s also possible that Josiah’s mother died and his father married Lydia Thayer in 1741 and had five more children between 1742 and 1749. There was certainly a Josiah and Lydia Carter active in that decade.

On 23 Apr 1763, the Rev. Andrew Eliot of the New North Meetinghouse married Josiah, Jr., to Mary Bradford. She was probably a daughter of Thomas Bradford, born in 1729. (There was another Mary Bradford born to other parents the year before, so I can’t be completely certain, but I’m going to proceed on that assumption.)

Josiah and Mary’s first daughter, also named Mary, was baptized in the First Meetinghouse on 15 Apr 1764. In regular order they had:

• Lucy (1765).
• Thomas Bradford (1767), named after his maternal grandfather.
• Josiah (1769), possibly named in honor of his paternal grandfather; his father stopped being designated “Jr.” at this time.
• John (1771).

Thomas Bradford had worked as one of Boston’s watchmen since 1734, patrolling the streets at night. The arrival of four British regiments in late 1768 complicated that job. Army officers resented having to answer to these working-class civilians, and there were several brawls between them and the watchmen.

Boston’s selectmen responded by beefing up law enforcement with new watches, including a “New South Watch” in October 1769. Bradford was one of the veterans assigned to that squad. In fact, the town made him acting “Constable of the South Watch”; I quoted his commission from the selectmen back here.

After the Massacre and the removal of the troops, the selectmen cut back on the watches in late 1770. Then, pressed by the public in town meeting, they reinstated a “South Watch near the Lamb Tavern” in early 1771 and put Bradford in charge.

Back in 1765, Josiah Carter had joined his father-in-law among the watchmen. He became part of Constable Bradford’s squad in 1771. The next year, the town appointed a fourth man to that watch; usually there were only three, but maybe they needed more manpower to cover all the nights. In November 1772, the selectmen replaced Bradford as Constable. It’s possible he hadn’t been up to the job for a while.

On 16 March 1773, Bradford later recounted, “i was carred Home from the Watch taken with a pain in my right Legg i Could not put it to ye. Ground.“ At the end of April, his daughters were still dressing his leg, and “i Have ben Con find for about a month.”

At age seventy-five, Bradford told the selectmen, he thought he had “but a few Days more to Live and now I intend to retier and to Take my Natrel Rest.” He asked for a small pension, enough for “a Littel fier & bread,” since he had no other income.

Josiah Carter’s name stopped appearing on surviving records of the Boston watch after March 1773, just as his father-in-law retired. Perhaps that was when he left town employ and became sexton at the First Meetinghouse, where he and his children had been baptized. That job involved looking after the church building and digging graves for its congregants.

The next we hear of Carter is in the 2 Jan 1775 Boston Evening-Post’s death notices:

Mr. Josiah Carter, aged 50. Sexton of the Old Brick, or first Church, in this Town.

Printer John Boyle recorded that Carter had died on 28 December. He was in fact only forty-eight years old.

TOMORROW: Josiah Carter and the young doctor.